1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a preference information collection system, a method therefor and a storage medium storing a control program. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and a method for automatically obtaining preference or attribute of user necessary for selection of information required by the user of automotive vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
A vehicular navigation system to be used in an automotive vehicle has been widely spreading. In the vehicular navigation system, a position of own vehicle is identified by a Global Positioning System (GPS), information of the own vehicle position is mapped on a map information, and a route from the current own vehicle position and a destination is retrieved for presenting a route information to a vehicular driver.
As an advanced system of the vehicular navigation system set forth above, there is a navigation system having a communication function. Such system takes information of restaurant, play spot or so forth into the navigation system through a portable telephone, car telephone or the like. In such vehicular navigation system, information services dedicated for providing information to vehicular driver have been provided by a plurality of companies in nowadays.
Shop information and so forth have been stored in software provided in form stored in CD (Compact Disc) or DVD (Digital Versatile Disc). However, such information is variable, the navigation system obtaining information through communication is advantageous for information presented being most recent information.
In case of a user of internet through a desktop type personal computer (PC), it is typically performed to retrieve desired information through various search engines.
In the conventional vehicular navigation system with a communication function, it should be difficult for the vehicular driver to select information beneficial or necessary while driving the vehicle. In order to solve the problem set forth above, in case of the internet, by declaring condition of necessary information by defining preference of the user in advance, there has been proposed a method for presenting only information adapting to the declared condition from information transmitted through the internet. Such technology has been called as PUSH technology. However, in this case, the user has to define own preference by the user.
The present invention has been worked out for solving the above-mentioned problem set forth above. It is therefore an object of the present invention is provide a preference information collection system, a method therefor and a storage medium storing a control program, which can automatically obtain preference information of user.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a preference information collection system, a method therefor and a storage medium storing a control program, which can selectively provide necessary information from information source of internet, digital broadcasting or the like.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, a preference information collecting system adapted for detecting staying of terminal equipment which is movable and position information of which is obtainable and collecting preference information of a user of the terminal from kind of a site where the terminal equipment stays, comprises:
a correspondence table storing a physical position of the site, type of a shop presenting on the site, a preliminarily set minimum time required for regarding that the terminal equipment stays the site, and the latest information of number of times of stay of the terminal equipment at the site, with correspondence thereof;
a position identifying device detecting a current position of the terminal equipment;
a stay condition detection device detecting a stay start condition of the terminal equipment;
a moving condition detection device detecting moving start condition of the terminal equipment; and
a preference detection device comparing a period from detection of the stay start condition by the stay condition detection device to detection of the moving start condition of the moving condition detection device and a value of the minimum time of the correspondence corresponding to a current position indicated by the position identifying device, and updating the latest information of number of times of stay of the correspondence table corresponding to a current position indicated by the position identifying device depending upon a result of comparison.
In the preferred construction, the position identifying device may be constructed with a receiver of one of a global positioning system and a positioning system comparable with the global positioning system. The terminal equipment may be mounted on an automotive vehicle. The stay condition detection device may detect stay start condition of the terminal equipment from one of rotating condition of vehicular wheel and ON and OFF condition of an automotive engine. The moving start condition detection device may detect stay start condition of the terminal equipment from one of rotating condition of vehicular wheel and ON and OFF condition of an automotive engine.
The preference information collecting system may further comprise:
a stay times accumulating portion accumulating a stay times corresponding to a type of the shop in the correspondence table and recording an accumulated stay times per type of the shop;
an information providing device receiving a pair of a contents at least including still image, moving picture and sound and a type of the shop of the content and providing information through a communication path;
a threshold value storing portion storing a preliminarily set minimum number of an accumulated number of times of stay;
an information filter responsive to the pair of the content and the type of the shop of the content from the information providing means for outputting the content depending upon a result of comparison between number of times of stay in the stay times accumulating portion corresponding to the type of the shop and a value of the threshold value storing portion; and
an information reproducing device receiving an output of the information filter and presenting information to the user.
The information providing device may receive the content using at least one of a ground wave digital broadcasting, a satellite digital broadcasting, a wired internet, a radio internet.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, a preference information collecting method adapted for detecting staying of terminal equipment which is movable and position information of which is obtainable and collecting preference information of a user of the terminal from kind of a site where the terminal equipment stays, comprises:
a step of providing a correspondence table storing a physical position of the site, type of a shop presenting on the site, a preliminarily set minimum time required for regarding that the terminal equipment stays the site, and the latest information of number of times of stay of the terminal equipment at the site, with correspondence thereof;
a step of making judgment whether the terminal equipment enters into stay start condition;
a step of detecting a current position of the terminal equipment upon entry into stay start condition of the terminal equipment;
a step of retrieving the correspondence table with a current position of the terminal equipment;
a step of detecting moving start condition of the terminal equipment;
a step of comparing a period from detection of the stay start condition by the stay condition detection device to detection of the moving start condition of the moving condition detection device and a value of the minimum time of the correspondence corresponding to a current position indicated by the position identifying device; and
a step of updating the latest information of number of times of stay of the correspondence table corresponding to a current position indicated by the position identifying device depending upon a result of comparison.
The step of detecting the current position of the terminal equipment may detect the current position of the terminal equipment on the basis of information from one of a global positioning system and a positioning system comparable with the global positioning system. The terminal equipment may be at least mounted on an automotive vehicle. The step of detecting stay start condition may detect stay start condition of the terminal equipment from one of rotating condition of vehicular wheel and ON and OFF condition of an automotive engine. The step of detecting moving start condition may detects stay start condition of the terminal equipment from one of rotating condition of vehicular wheel and ON and OFF condition of an automotive engine.
The preference information collecting method may further comprise:
a step of accumulating a stay times corresponding to a type of the shop in the correspondence table and recording an accumulated stay times per type of the shop upon receiving a pair of a contents at least including still image, moving picture and sound and a type of the shop of the content and providing information through a communication path, and retrieving a stay times accumulating portion recording number of times of stay per shop in the correspondence table by a type of the shop of the content;
a step of comparing a stay times retrieved from the stay times accumulating portion with a preliminarily set minimum number of an accumulated number of times of stay;
a step of outputting the content depending upon a result of comparison.
The content may be received using at least one of a ground wave digital broadcasting, a satellite digital broadcasting, a wired internet, a radio internet.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, a storage medium storing a preference information collection control program for operating a preference information collecting system adapted for detecting staying of terminal equipment which is movable and position information of which is obtainable and collecting preference information of a user of the terminal from kind of a site where the terminal equipment stays,
the preference information collecting system providing a correspondence table storing a physical position of the site, type of a shop presenting on the site, a preliminarily set minimum time required for regarding that the terminal equipment stays the site, and the latest information of number of times of stay of the terminal equipment at the site, with correspondence thereof,
the preference information collection control program operating the preference information collecting system
for making judgment whether the terminal equipment enters into stay start condition;
for detecting a current position of the terminal equipment upon entry into stay start condition of the terminal equipment;
for retrieving the correspondence table with a current position of the terminal equipment;
for detecting moving start condition of the terminal equipment;
for comparing a period from detection of the stay start condition by the stay condition detection device to detection of the moving start condition of the moving condition detection device and a value of the minimum time of the correspondence corresponding to a current position indicated by the position identifying device; and
for updating the latest information of number of times of stay of the correspondence table corresponding to a current position indicated by the position identifying device depending upon a result of comparison.
The preference information collecting control program may also operate the preference information collection system
for accumulating a stay times corresponding to a type of the shop in the correspondence table and recording an accumulated stay times per type of the shop upon receiving a pair of a contents at least including still image, moving picture and sound and a type of the shop of the content and providing information through a communication path, and retrieving a stay times accumulating portion recording number of times of stay per shop in the correspondence table by a type of the shop of the content;
for comparing a stay times retrieved from the stay times accumulating portion with a preliminarily set minimum number of an accumulated number of times of stay; and
for outputting the content depending upon a result of comparison.
Namely, the preference information collecting system according to the present invention includes the correspondence table storing physical position (latitude and longitude) of destination of the user to visit, such as tennis court, shopping mall, game center and so forth, and name of the shop, and a receiver device of a device, such as GPS or pseudollite.
By this, once the current position (latitude and longitude) of the user terminal can be known by the GPS or the like, what shop the user is staying can be easy seen through retrieval of the correspondence table. Accordingly, it can be seen how many times the user visit the shop. Therefore, the preference information of the user can be obtained automatically.
On the other hand, the preference information collecting system according to the present invention has the information providing device, such as the satellite digital broadcasting, the ground wave broadcasting, data broadcasting, internet (wired or radio) and so forth. The information provided by the information providing device is added type of the content. When the user received the information, only information adapted to the preference of the user can be selected and provided to the user using the preference information obtained through the correspondence table.